Oral History Interview with Alice Aycock, 2009 February 2-March 25

Oral history interview with Alice Aycock, 2009 February 2-March 25 Funding for this interview was provided by the U.S. General Services Administration, Design Excellence and the Arts. Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service. Contact Information Reference Department Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution Washington. D.C. 20560 www.aaa.si.edu/askus Transcript Interview Interview with Alice Aycock Conducted by Avis Berman At Aycock's in New York, NY 2009 February 4-March 25 Preface The following oral history transcript is the result of a recorded interview with Alice Aycock on 2009 February 4- March 25. The interview took place at Aycock's home in New York, NY, and was conducted by Avis Berman for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. This interview is part of the U.S. General Services Administration, Design for Excellence and the Arts oral history project. Avis Berman has reviewed the transcript and has made corrections and emendations. The reader should bear in mind that he or she is reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose. AVIS BERMAN: This is Avis Berman interviewing Alice Aycock for the Archives of America Art GSA Oral History Project on February 4, 2009, in her loft in SoHo. Would you please state your full name and date of birth. ALICE AYCOCK: Alice Aycock, November 20, 1946. MS. BERMAN: And you were born in Harrisburg? MS. AYCOCK: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] MS. BERMAN: Did you grow up there? MS. AYCOCK: Yes, I did. I grew up just outside of Harrisburg in a suburb called Camp Hill, the other side of the river. MS. BERMAN: And what kind of a town was that? MS. AYCOCK: It was—well, I guess it was the more well-to-do suburb. To me it was just where I grew up. But it was a pretty white bread town, I suppose, at that time because that was some 60 years ago. So I would say it was pretty Protestant, pretty white, pretty—that kind of thing—where most of the kids went on to college supposedly. And no crime or anything like that kind of place. That changed—well, I don't know how much that changed. But do you want me to talk on and on a little bit about it? MS. BERMAN: Well, you can talk about what interests you about it if you'd like. MS. AYCOCK: Well, recently I reconnected with an old high school boyfriend, and I was remembering those days, which I still remember—sometimes fondly and sometimes not. But we were in high school from '60 to '64. And I believe that Kennedy was shot during the senior play, the afternoon of the senior play. That's what I remember. So we were very much right at the forefront of all of those things that made the '60s both euphoria and an idea of positive change, whatever the Kennedy mystique made us all feel. And then also the tremendous disappointment and letdown that occurred. And I remember that the group that I was friends with kind of spanned three years, three generations, of sophomore, junior, and senior. And we were very involved with music. We were involved with music that came out of the black churches in Harrisburg and was then becoming rock and roll. So there was a black band called the Aldantes, that we followed and that my boyfriend was a member of with his brother. And we sort of began what was we were part of the change that came to that town. And I think we did it naively. Some of us went on to become very political and to be very much part of the anti-war movement. Made names for themselves in the movement, names that were people who really made names in that movement. I won't go into that too deeply, but some of those people who were part of my group. And I think it was something that was in the air, and that we picked up on while we were in revolt against who our parents were. I think the ones of us who went out and left that community and went out into the world were also products of maybe who our family were. Because some of our families were not just narrow-minded people. And so I was—when I contacted this friend of mine that I hadn't spoken to in 40 or 50 years, and he was right with me. We were really saying for the first time I [felt like it did] on inauguration day. But wow! You know. Some of the things that we really believed in was the environment, or anti-war, or the civil rights movement, or I can't say that they were too pro-woman at that point; they were pretty much males, traditional males. But a lot of the things—then we went on to college and got involved in. And we were really—I really felt, and I think this friend of mine felt—yes, our youth had come back. That we weren't just stupid idealists or hippies or whatever it is they wanted to say. That we were really part of something that instigated something that's borne some fruit, the positive, wonderful parts of it. So I was very lucky in that sense that some of the people I hung out with in this little town, that seemed very far from New York and from the big city at that time, actually were hooked into things that were really exciting. And then we all went our separate ways to college, and we all became whatever we became. And as I said, some of them became quite real radicals and made names for themselves. Got them in trouble. But the genesis of it was to really begin this movement, particularly I think in terms of civil rights and anti-war, that is just marvelous. MS. BERMAN: You mentioned rebelling. It seems to me, from what I've read, that you grew up in a very fertile environment where imagination was really encouraged. MS. AYCOCK: Well, in my family it was. MS. BERMAN: Yes. MS. AYCOCK: Yes. But that was separate. And then you joined the larger community. So in my family I think it was, although to me it was just my family. So they were who they were. They weren't the wackiest, though. Let me say there were some wackos, guys who had antennas in their backyard and all kinds of stuff, and were always making experiments. And we weren't like that. [Laughs] We looked kind of normal from the outside. But I think what was really great about it—and of course you make it in memory, it becomes something else—what was wonderful for me was that my father had a wonderful mind, and he was very curious. And he loved building things, and he encouraged me. And he was also, I think, very bright, very intelligent, and he was well-read. And so I was able to put those things together like the ideas with the making. And that one didn't take priority over the other. And he challenged me, he competed with me. He wanted to be the smartest at the table, and generally, of course, he was, as a child. But he encouraged my weirdness, I guess. But, at the same time I think I appeared to be like pretty normal. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. It's just who I was. But I wouldn't say I was a nerd. MS. BERMAN: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] MS. AYCOCK: I didn't come off as the nerd. Or the artsy-fartsy kid. MS. BERMAN: So what kind of a kid were you? MS. AYCOCK: I wanted to get really good grades. I wanted to be number one in the class. And I in that particular environment art was not—art in schools, the kids who were not particularly going to be on the college track, they're the ones that were in the typing classes and the art classes and the shop classes. So it was not something you wanted to be labeled with. But at the same time—so I didn't get a lot of art lessons as a child. I got a little bit. And I kind of put it down. I kind of kept it. I didn't talk about it with my friends. And I would do it secretly in the basement, pictures and paintings in the basement. And when my history teacher said, “You know, Alice, I think you're really talented,” [Laughs] I said, “No! I'm not!” No, no, no. I'm going to be a historian, I'm going to be a writer. I'm going to be a fiction writer. But I'm not going to be a visual artist. No, because smart people aren't visual artists. MS. BERMAN: So you were drawing, and you were painting at that point. MS. AYCOCK: I was drawing and painting. I wasn't building very much. But I was drawing and painting and writing and reading. And to me it was what kids do, normal kids do. Reading books, buying books. Reading things we weren't supposed to read. But even then if you bought the Communist Manifesto or something that was considered wrong. So I'd buy it and read it in the basement or something.

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